On June 11, 2014, The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Task Force, Inc., Southfield held their first Annual Justice and Equality awards Ceremony, honoring two of our community’s great activists and interfaith champions.

Barbara E. Talley was the first African American elected to public office in the City of Southfield and elected to Southfield City Council in 1983 and served as a Councilwoman for six years. Over the course of her extensive public career, she has worked tirelessly on initiatives promoting peace, justice, equality, and civil rights, on issues of environmental protection, interfaith understanding, equality in government, and fair housing practices.

She has been honored numerous times, including receiving a Peace Award from the City of Ixtapa, Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico, and for her book “Pathways to Interfaith Dialogue: An Innovative Model for Peace and Community Building, which stemmed from her work in forming the Southfield Interfaith Clergy Group in the late 1990’s.

At the June 11 ceremony, Mrs. Talley received the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Justice & Equality Award.

Dawud Walid is a noted Muslim expert and advocate, an Islamic preacher and a blogger for the Detroit News, preaching across the country, and serving as Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI).

He has presented on prominent panel discussions with international leaders and

Academics including the 2008 and 2011 Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Conventions and the 2009 and 2010 Malian Peace & Tolerance Conferences held in Bamako, Mali, which were attended by religious scholars from 12 different countries.

And he has been a regular contributor to the Muslim Observer newspaper and Illume Magazine and has also been interviewed, quoted, and published in numerous media outlets throughout the globe including, Al-Jazeera, BBC,CNN,FOX, NBC World News, National Public Radio, the New York Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. He is featured in the 2012 book “All-American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim”